


And in retelling, reshape.

by Zimraphel



Series: Tryptich [3]
Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Gen, You Have Been Warned, full disclose; i am cackling, we arrive at the fiery chasm once more
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-16
Updated: 2021-03-16
Packaged: 2021-03-25 03:35:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,067
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30082878
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zimraphel/pseuds/Zimraphel
Summary: Maedhros [...] into the fiery chasm.(The storyteller reveals his face at last).
Relationships: Maedhros | Maitimo & Maglor | Makalaurë
Series: Tryptich [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2213400
Comments: 8
Kudos: 12





	And in retelling, reshape.

When asked, this is how he tells it;

His poor older brother, scarred and haunted, throwing the stone into a sea of fire, then diving after himself, unable to bear separation from long duty.

Or no; stumbling headily along, so very little now of him left-- a little wind among the rocks, insubstantial, love lost long beneath the waves.

Sometimes the audience calls for a different approach. He senses this; he has always been good at gauging the needs of his listeners. So tonight Maitimo is resolute and proud, scarred but unbowed, the bright flame of his hair a banner in the wind to which one might still repair; and with his last steps casts judgement on the world they all helped to shape.

-

The jewel lights him up strangely from below, moves wildly over the severe lines of his face. He is smiling.

"Ours to keep at last, Makalaurë."

He calls him again by this long-dead name, calling forth the proud prince who raised his sword alongside his father; not the ragged wanderer who has long-since learned to subsist on a diet of meagre seaweed and memory.

There is no hint of regret in his voice, or on his face; if once there was it is now erased by Light beyond the world, rough planes evened out once more far beyond the grasp of recollection. When he opens his mouth to speak in turn his voice falters. Who can begrudge this lost prince the erasure of the long shadow of pain, that constant companion through every disaster they hurled themselves into? The air is thick with bitter smoke. Drifting ash and salt lie heavy on his tongue. Where to now?

-

Maglor looks over his shoulder; none pursue. With foresight rare to him he sees the future spiraling into far false distance, dragged ever further along by the long chain of duty, steel forged in fires hotter than anything the world now knows. Is that not a Silmaril that shines now in the West? At the time unattainable, and so secure; never again a cause for slaughter. But in the glow of that awful, impossible light everything is changed, lit once more from below by the fell glare of hope. They have two now; he would make it three still. He would chase the Moon from the sky if that was what it took, drag it grey and fragmented down into the earth.

Oh, he would regret it, his brother; let none paint this man who knows pain better than any other as being without compassion.

But that is just it; he knows, and has never allowed that to stop him, in the end. No new revelation will change his mind. There is nothing now left for them to learn. He knows exactly what he is doing; has tried to stop long enough to weigh others’ pain against his own, and found theirs lacking.

He knows, then, when his brother smiles with all the lost and fervent beauty of his youth, illuminates the night -- that this will never end. They will sail into the very sky to hunt the stars, two knights-errant on a voyage enduring, in pursuit of a fire ever lost, tearing through the Void like Arien chased by Tillion. He can see them now, wandering stars encased by cold dark, lit up from below by unearthly light; pure will beyond love or memory, racing ever on.

-

Once there were two a small warm hands, at rest within his own.

-

He has never stood aside. His regrets are ever reserved for songs, the wreckage of slaughter fuel for the slow consumption of art, any pain bearable; through creation his to own and alter at will. Though he has done many things he is not a man who acts; flotsam on the stream of history, drifting along, ever pulled along by stronger forces.

He steps closer.

The twin lights they hold reach out to one other, long to form a bridge of light like the thin branches of a tree. His brother still smiles, and for a moment he thinks he could cross it; could walk across their pale beams back into the cherished past. There are tears in his eyes blanketing everything in a forgiving blur, smoothened out; simplified. The light twists and mingles, incomplete; striving towards some greater unity, the last fragments of a world now locked safely away, separated only by transparent silima. Maedhros' shoulder is warm and solid beneath his hand, his rare and mended smile full of trust and joy, so whole for once it feels like something tearing.

-

He pushes.

-

No sound leaves his brother’s mouth, opened in one last surprised O; for one brittle moment all the raised lines of his face seem to come undone before he stumbles back, submerged into the earth forever.

His hand the last thing he sees of him, raising light above the fire as though that will keep it safe.

At long last that too it disappears entirely, the steady stream of lava no longer lit by anything foreign to these grey shores.

-

Maglor sits on the charred ground for a while, racked still by great sobs. The jewel burns its merciless light into the world, burns like it is trying to tear a hole into it. It is like a star by day. It does not dull, or soften.

At last he quiets, and looks down. Still there is no one coming after, nothing after but the Sea that creeps ever further in consuming the earth. With a cry he finds himself standing, twisting his arm back as far as he can manage; to send the light skimming along the seam of sky and water until at last it too submerges in full, never to return.

\- 

The world flickers unsteadily before his eyes, still adjusting to a duller vision. He pulls his cloak around him, tight, suddenly so light he the wind might take him. Feeling a strange smile take hold of his face in something he does not yet dare call relief.

-

And for a while all stays as it was; the Sea ever encroaching, the crumbling of charred earth. But at long last he lets the wind take him where it will, pulled along as much as he ever was. And when in his long wandering he starts again to sing his song is washed already nearly free of sorrow.

**Author's Note:**

> HAHAHA. Who knew! Maglor wrote Fulgurite and Clair-obscur all along. ;)

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Trippy Situations](https://archiveofourown.org/works/30087735) by [Torpi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Torpi/pseuds/Torpi)




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